Networking

I am running 2 computers both have win XP as the OS, I have upstairs and one downstairs, I been trying to network for over a month.. I can get it to network from downstairs to upstairs, I see all the shared drives and all that. But can not get it to network the other way, UP > DOWN. Both have the same componants and software. I am at my ends wits, so I though I would pose the problem here...

Thanks

any help or sugfgests are welcomed

In loving of a pet that is now departed.
Rasputin:
Born: ?/?/1992 (adopted from a shelter)
Adopted: 10/2/1995
Passed away: 11/25/2006

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Windows is a fickle thing, I constantly have similar problems with networking as well.

Give me two Linux boxes and I can have them running as one in under 20 minutes. However it takes me a month of Sundays just to get one Windows machine to recognize another on my messed up network here at home.

Windows tends to ignore other machines if they're on different subnets, even if they have the same Workgroup name. I understand why, but I'm not really sure why there's no manual override or something like that for it. (If there is a manual override, I certainly haven't been able to find it!)

I'm not sure also, if setting up a secondary local IP will help... since you have a router already, your machines should be running with local IP addresses (Like 192.168.0.101, 192.168.0.102 etc.)

I guess first what I would do would be to make sure any firewalls are disabled on both machines, Then power both computers off, then power your router off, wait 5 minutes, turn the router on, turn one computer on, then turn the other computer on.

Sometimes that will do it.

Mike Miller
Technical Support
TotalChoice Hosting, Inc.

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Networking with Windows can be a hair pulling experience and my bald spot is proof . Sometimes the littlest change can cause major headaches and you were not even aware that you made a change. For instance you could have originally set the network up with a workgroup name and while trying to fix something you ran the network wizard and it was changed to the default of MSHOME. Once this happens the links you originally had to printers and hard drives start breaking and not working. What I usually end up doing is starting from the beginning and redo everything.

I remove the network by starting with removing all the "shares", I unshare the hard drives and the printers on all the computers. Next I remove the protocols, "Client for Microsoft Networks", "File and Print Sharing", "TCP/IP", etc. Next I go into Device Manager and remove all the Network Adapters.

Now I will turn off all the devices and start reloading one at a time. At Bootup the hardware should be detected and the drivers for the cards should be found and loaded automatically. If the Network Wizard does not start, start it to setup your network. Make sure you use the same Workgroup name for all computers and reply yes for Print and File sharing. After this is done go in and setup your shares, in Control Panel you set up sharing your Printers and in Windows Explorer you setup sharing your drives. Once you have done this on all computers turn them all off and reboot them one at a time and see if the network works in both directions.

Yes its a lot of work but sometimes its easier then fumbling around trying this or trying that and failing over and over again.